DEAR OTHERS: A LETTER FROM EVERY CHILD OF THE WORLD

Dear Others,

You have taught me to feel deficient and separate. From the moment I was born, I was told that the way I am is not good enough. You laid down the rules before I got here. I never had a chance to contribute to that conversation. Although you told me that your divisions between right and wrong were logical, I saw that you created your rules and divisions out of emotion. I learned early in life that you were lying to me from the beginning. When I acted in ways that did not conform to your rules, you told me that the consequences you imposed were in my best interests, as if you came to this conclusion through some form of higher understanding. But I was tuned into your emotions from the beginning. I could tell that you were acting from something much more primitive – emotion and unconscious thinking within you that had not been resolved.

When I was hurt, resistant, afraid, shameful or angry, I broke your rules. I had no other way of getting your attention.

I needed your attention from the beginning, to help me navigate a complicated world that was lying to me from the beginning. In seeking your attention, I have been trying to tell you that I am hurt, resistant, afraid, shameful and angry and that I can see you are too.

I wanted you to be present to your own thinking and emotions so that you could help me be present to mine. I was hoping that you could help me. But instead you have reacted again and again from your own hurt, resistance, fear, shame and anger whenever I broke your rules. You projected these emotions back onto me whenever I broke your rules. This merely solidified my sense of deficiency and separation. For this reason, I have grown up not able to be present to my thoughts and feelings. Once I learned how to feel deficient and separate, I continued to break your rules as a way to confirm these thoughts and feelings of deficiency and separation within me. With this sense of deficiency and separation, at least I know I am somebody, even if that “somebody” is wrong in your eyes. You have taught me that being nobody has no value in your world. The only way I know how to get your attention is to act out and to solidify the sense of deficiency and separation within myself.

You have taught me to break your rules and then you have acted surprised when I do. You have acted from hurt, anger, shame and fear. I therefore feel hurt, angry, ashamed and afraid in response to your reaction. I am asking instead for unconditional love and acceptance. I am much more likely to conform if I am shown unconditional love and acceptance. I am much more likely to heal and get better, as you heal and get better. But I am concerned with the fact that you do not unconditionally love and accept yourself. You are my teacher. I would like my teacher to be clear so that I can know how to be clear. Instead, I’ve been taught to lie about how I really feel. I learned that from you.

You have placed unrealistic expectations on me. This has strengthened my drive to be somebody, even if that somebody is a deficient and separate self. You have demanded that I conform to your view of me. You have asked me not to lie, fight, hide, manipulate or control. But I learned these traits by watching you and by having to navigate a world created by your unconsciousness. I would love to live in your world without lying, fighting, hiding, manipulating and controlling. But I have been continuously sent the message that who or what is am is not acceptable. You have never stopped to examine the fact that your unrealistic expectations come from your own hurt, fear, shame and anger. Even your constructive criticism feels like a veiled punishment. The only thing it constructs is more ego in both of us. Therefore, I must continue to hide, lie, fight, manipulate and control. I am forced to continue to not live up to your expectations. These traits are my survival mechanisms. I see that you have the same mechanisms in place. I learned them from you. In every moment that you come at me with unrealistic expectations, I sense your fear, shame, anger and hurt. But you are not aware of these emotions in you. You tell me that in order to live and survive in this world, I must conform. You are asking me to conform to unconsciousness. You are telling me “this is just the way the world is.” But it is this world that created my deficiency and separation. So you are telling me to continue living with deficiency and separation merely because it is the status quo. This, I cannot do.

The only conformity I have learned from you is to act and react from my own psychological and emotional disturbances. This is the conformity you have taught me, with your rules and emotional reactions, even when you don’t realize it. Until your unrealistic expectations relax entirely, I cannot change. I am locked into a habitual pattern of acting out from unresolved emotion, just as you are. In this way, none of us are healing or transforming. And so we will pass this unconsciousness down to the next generation and the next.

I have wanted to know how to be clear and undisturbed, emotionally and psychologically. I have wanted to know how to live peacefully, with a heart full of love, gratitude and acceptance. I have wanted to know that I am ok as I am. But I have not been able to learn this from you, because I see that you are not clear emotionally and psychologically. You are not ok with who you are. Therefore, we are locked into an impossible situation.

You are expecting me to rise above the unconsciousness that I inherited from you. I can only do this with your help. I can only do this if you begin to rise above your own unconsciousness.

If you cannot rise above your unconsciousness, I simply ask that you be honest with me about that. If you are honest with me, I will no longer look to you for help in this area. I will look somewhere else. But when you tell me that I must change, that I must rise above my unconsciousness, even when you are not able to do the same, I feel you are lying to me again. Therefore I cannot trust you. In not trusting you, I must resort back to my own unconscious patterns and survival mechanisms as a way to survive. This is how I get your attention.

I am learning to be present to my own thoughts and feelings. I am encouraged by this, as it begins to reveal peace, love and happiness in my life. But I am asking you to help me with this. And the only way you can help is by being present to your own thoughts and feelings. You cannot help me by pointing back to me or reacting to me from your own hurt, anger, shame and fear. Each time you point outward at me in this way, we take two steps back. You resend the signal that I am deficient, that I am not ok as I am. This sends the signal that you are lying to me again. I can see that you are not ok with who you are and what you feel. I can see that you are hurt, angry, ashamed and afraid and are being dishonest about it again. I can see that you are not present to your unconsciousness. I will be present with the thoughts and feelings that this brings up in me. I am asking you to do the same. In this way, we can both heal and then change the world, instead of merely trying to survive in it.